Brevard (CFL?) Color change!

[jcarrera]

Tonight, sometime before 8PM, the color changed...well, not really color, but color plus brightness plus contrast plus ???????. I'll maybe call it intensity of the lighter areas? The picture is waaaay brighter...and washed out due to the excessive brilliance. I checked the TV settings and they are the same as before.

People's faces if in studio lights have hot spots and highlights; also, skin tone is way lighter.

This is sooooo aggravating because I had spent hours a couple of months ago adjusting the TV settings (Picture, Brightness, Color, Hue, Sharpness) to get the picture well tuned, and it was great. Now, shot. What the........?

I have three custom settable selection bins for the color settings, so I went to the third bin that I don't use and tried to get the pic back to how it was before. No dice. Not even close, no matter how I change the five control parameters.


Rebooting the SA8300HD made no difference.

[jcarrera]

I just figured out a way to describe it. It is like the picture is being processed through a "video equalizer" and bright pixels are amplified, and the brighter the pixel, the more amplification it receives.

LATER: I've got another hour in watching and fiddling. This is awful. Some scenes come on screen that are unwatchable. There was just one on with a person that had a light coat with white shirt. Oh gosh. All detail in the coat/shirt was completely gone. It looked like it had been air brushed brilliant white all over. And a picture with sun on a face is scary.

LATER LATER: Just recalled something. I absolutely believe something is going on at the head end. I now recall that a week or two ago, I asked my wife, didn't the TV picture seem clearer and sharper. She said maybe, but I was certain there was a change. THAT change was a positive one. This one is NOT!! The combination of these happening convinces me that something is happening at the head end or somewhere along the path, and I bet its changes at the head end. The last one really has messed me up.

LATER LATER LATER 5-25-07, 1815E: Still continues. And the bedroom TV (straight cable) is clearly "hotter" as well, so it is coming in the signal that way, not something the box is doing. Is it possible for cable signal to be too "hot."

[Khandurian]

Yes, it is very possible for you it to be too "hot" as you describe it. I do know they were in the process of doing line balancing in a couple of areas, I wonder if you were in one of those areas.

Ok, here's what you can do for now. When BHN installed your cable, did they install an amplifier? If so, what size? 4 port? 8 port? If they installed a 4 port amp, go outside, disconnect the amp, and hook the one line from the tv directly to the drop.

Make sure of course, that thats not the line thats powering the amp as well. If you have done this, did you notice that the picture is now back to normal?

Of course, you dont have to do all this if you don't want to. You can always call and get a service call and they will come out and do the same thing for you.

It's very doubtfull that if you call they will know if your area is one of the areas that got re-balanced.

Well, after reading your post a little more closer, it could also be an line amp down the line about to go bad. Crap could be anything! Put in a service call!

[jcarrera]

K, the amp I have feeds only the main family room TV with the 8300HD box; it does not boost the feed to the bedroom TV which also has experienced the change.

Nevertheless, I decided to try taking it out of the line into FR TV. I encountered something very odd. As I was disconnecting the coaxes, I felt a strong tingle--not from the power feed coax, but the other two (to wall and to 8300). So I got out my multimeter and there is 80 VAC between the shells of the two ends. That doesn't seem right at all. Bear in mind, the amp with its pwr feed is laying on the floor at this point--not involved at all.

[Khandurian]

That definitely is not good. Go outside, disconnect all the lines, and then test to see if that voltage is present on the line coming directly from the pole/ped. If it is, I highly suggested leaving it disconnected and calling BHN immediately and getting a tech out there.

If it is not, then disconnect each line to find out which line is feeding that voltage to the system. Once you have found the line that is supplying the voltage, then goto that room and disconnect everything off that line, pop back outside see if voltage is still present.

If voltage is still present, it needs to be replaced. If voltage is gone, then it could be the tv/vcr/box thats faulting.

[stevenl]

do you have problems with your lights at all flickering? Or sometimes going dim? It could be a problem with your power neutral as well, what happens when that starts to go bad then your cable line turns into the new neutral which certainly is not good.

and their should never be a reason why you need a house amp to power 1 single tv. Im wonderinf if what you call the amp is simpley the power supply. The amp should look almost like a splitter with multiple lines connected to it (a larger version) Their should be 3 items with the amp if remotely powerd. First a "Power Inserter" which looks like a two way splitter, The power pack which looks like a phone charger and plugs into the power inserter, Then elsewhere the amp itself.

[jcarrera]

Interesting you should mention the power neutral. That was just replaced by FPL about two weeks ago. Actually, the whole drop was replaced due to floating neutral. House power indeed was funny while that was floating, but new drop is higher gauge wire than original install. While it was bad, we had a house appliance replaced because it wasn't working up to snuff. Now I'm sure it was the power line--not the appliance.

As to the amp, it was put in by a BHN tech several years ago on a call for problem unremembered. It is an Electroline, similar to the EDA 2100 now shown on their site, but exterior form looks slightly different. 3 ports: pwr-in, RF in, RF out to box/TV. The pwr-in wart is plugged into a pwr strip inside the entertainment center cabinet. Coax carrying the power runs from the wart to the amp right behind/outside the cabinet.

Summary, there is the voltage between the shields of the line coming in and the one going to the 8300 input. It is not the house neutral causing it; that's now fine.

[stevenl]

The device you speak of ports: pwr-in, RF in, RF Is the Power inserter not an amplifier from the way you descibe it perhaps the amp was removed awhile ago and you still have the power adapter?

Well it could be a 1 port amp.. The three ports "RF In" "Power in" and should have "RF out / PWR IN" on the same port right?

[casper04]

lol.... this really doesn't seem like an amp or power issue... this is not analog tv, where it would definitely affect it.
You either had a power outage and had ur settings reset... but u seem to be sure they're the same. Or there's just a change in the headend

Honestly I dont know that much about digital simulcast to tell u specifics, but i see this stuff in the field everyday and i've had some perty picky customers

[jcarrera]

<g> Well, I will admit to the "picky" part! However...until this happened, I was totally satisfied--indeed--very happy with the PQ. I had spent hours tweaking the picture controls on the TV and had it set to provide great picture. So, at that point the pickyness was satisfied. Now I am back to being picky because I pay a lot, it was good, and now it isn't--with no change on my part.

Some more thinking: Since both the analog and digital TVs were affected, and the "level" of the signal would not affect the digital picture (right?), then the change had to happen in equipment before being inserted into the cable distribution system. Because it could not be an overall amplification issue.